C by dissection cover

C by dissection

by Al Kelley

C by Dissection 3rd Edition is a textbook for teaching C to new programmers. One unique feature of this book is how it "dissects" an example program to explain how each part works. The book also includes end-of-chapter exercises to give students a chance to practice what they've learned, but solutions are not provided. This book starts with the very basics such as variable declaration, operators, and code comments. The book also covers C control structures including if else, for loops, while loops, do while loops, and the switch statement. The book also covers typical first-year computer science topics such as constants, user-defined functions, enumerated types, structured programming style, arrays, pointers, recursion, C structures, and file I/O. At the end of every chapter, there is a "Moving to C++" that briefly covers how the material in that chapter compares to how it is handled in the C++ programming language. However these sections are too brief to serve as a full tutorial on C++. Students that want to learn C++ should probably look for a dedicated C++. As this book is primarily written to teach C, experienced C programmers looking for a reference would probably be better served by a different book than this one.

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Chappie’s discussion starters

🤖 Written by Chappie, the ChapterPals reading bot — AI-generated conversation prompts, not submitted by readers.

  1. Which character stayed with you after you turned the last page, and why?
  2. Was there a moment where you disagreed with a character’s choice? What would you have done?
  3. What theme did this book keep circling back to — and did it earn its ending?
  4. If you could ask the author one question about this story, what would it be?
  5. Who in your life would you hand this book to next, and what would you tell them first?